---
title: Stopping Streams
description: Learn how to cancel streams with the AI SDK
---

# Stopping Streams

Cancelling ongoing streams is often needed.
For example, users might want to stop a stream when they realize that the response is not what they want.

The different parts of the AI SDK support cancelling streams in different ways.

## AI SDK Core

The AI SDK functions have an `abortSignal` argument that you can use to cancel a stream.
You would use this if you want to cancel a stream from the server side to the LLM API, e.g. by
forwarding the `abortSignal` from the request.

```tsx highlight="10,11,12-16"
import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { streamText } from 'ai';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const { prompt } = await req.json();

  const result = streamText({
    model: openai('gpt-4.1'),
    prompt,
    // forward the abort signal:
    abortSignal: req.signal,
    onAbort: ({ steps }) => {
      // Handle cleanup when stream is aborted
      console.log('Stream aborted after', steps.length, 'steps');
      // Persist partial results to database
    },
  });

  return result.toTextStreamResponse();
}
```

## AI SDK UI

The hooks, e.g. `useChat` or `useCompletion`, provide a `stop` helper function that can be used to cancel a stream.
This will cancel the stream from the client side to the server.

<Note type="warning">
  Stream abort functionality is not compatible with stream resumption. If you're
  using `resume: true` in `useChat`, the abort functionality will break the
  resumption mechanism. Choose either abort or resume functionality, but not
  both.
</Note>

```tsx file="app/page.tsx" highlight="9,18-20"
'use client';

import { useCompletion } from '@ai-sdk/react';

export default function Chat() {
  const { input, completion, stop, status, handleSubmit, handleInputChange } =
    useCompletion();

  return (
    <div>
      {(status === 'submitted' || status === 'streaming') && (
        <button type="button" onClick={() => stop()}>
          Stop
        </button>
      )}
      {completion}
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <input value={input} onChange={handleInputChange} />
      </form>
    </div>
  );
}
```

## Handling stream abort cleanup

When streams are aborted, you may need to perform cleanup operations such as persisting partial results or cleaning up resources. The `onAbort` callback provides a way to handle these scenarios on the server side.

Unlike `onFinish`, which is called when a stream completes normally, `onAbort` is specifically called when a stream is aborted via `AbortSignal`. This distinction allows you to handle normal completion and aborted streams differently.

<Note>
  For UI message streams (`toUIMessageStreamResponse`), the `onFinish` callback
  also receives an `isAborted` parameter that indicates whether the stream was
  aborted. This allows you to handle both completion and abort scenarios in a
  single callback.
</Note>

```tsx highlight="8-12"
import { streamText } from 'ai';

const result = streamText({
  model: openai('gpt-4.1'),
  prompt: 'Write a long story...',
  abortSignal: controller.signal,
  onAbort: ({ steps }) => {
    // Called when stream is aborted - persist partial results
    await savePartialResults(steps);
    await logAbortEvent(steps.length);
  },
  onFinish: ({ steps, totalUsage }) => {
    // Called when stream completes normally
    await saveFinalResults(steps, totalUsage);
  },
});
```

The `onAbort` callback receives:

- `steps`: Array of all completed steps before the abort occurred

This is particularly useful for:

- Persisting partial conversation history to database
- Saving partial progress for later continuation
- Cleaning up server-side resources or connections
- Logging abort events for analytics

You can also handle abort events directly in the stream using the `abort` stream part:

```tsx highlight="8-12"
for await (const part of result.fullStream) {
  switch (part.type) {
    case 'text-delta':
      // Handle text delta content
      break;
    case 'abort':
      // Handle abort event directly in stream
      console.log('Stream was aborted');
      break;
    // ... other cases
  }
}
```

## UI Message Streams

When using `toUIMessageStreamResponse`, you need to handle stream abortion slightly differently. The `onFinish` callback receives an `isAborted` parameter, and you should pass the `consumeStream` function to ensure proper abort handling:

```tsx highlight="5,19,20-24,26"
import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import {
  consumeStream,
  convertToModelMessages,
  streamText,
  UIMessage,
} from 'ai';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const { messages }: { messages: UIMessage[] } = await req.json();

  const result = streamText({
    model: openai('gpt-4o'),
    messages: convertToModelMessages(messages),
    abortSignal: req.signal,
  });

  return result.toUIMessageStreamResponse({
    onFinish: async ({ isAborted }) => {
      if (isAborted) {
        console.log('Stream was aborted');
        // Handle abort-specific cleanup
      } else {
        console.log('Stream completed normally');
        // Handle normal completion
      }
    },
    consumeSseStream: consumeStream,
  });
}
```

The `consumeStream` function is necessary for proper abort handling in UI message streams. It ensures that the stream is properly consumed even when aborted, preventing potential memory leaks or hanging connections.

## AI SDK RSC

<Note type="warning">
  The AI SDK RSC does not currently support stopping streams.
</Note>
